From the Director's Desk

April 2011

As you may have heard, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests.

We, at Armenia Tree Project, are thrilled that forests and forestry issues are receiving this type of global attention, as our core program plans for Armenia this year are closely aligned with these objectives.

With your support, we will plant hundreds of thousands of trees at rural and urban sites, while simultaneously engaging youth in environmental education programs and local residents in sustainable forest management trainings.

Our dynamic and committed staff is poised to hire hundreds of workers who desperately need jobs and income, to plant reforestation seedlings purchased from family-owned backyard nurseries and harvested from our Mirak nursery in Margahovit village.

Our Community Tree Planting staff has plans to bring over 35,000 fruit, nut and decorative trees to 94 sites in Yerevan, every region of Armenia, and Artsakh. Residents of every community that receives trees will be trained on planting and maintenance to ensure the highest possible survival rates.

All of our efforts are directed towards raising awareness and creating value for Armenia’s unique web of fragile ecosystems, upon which all life depends. There are so many important and competing priorities for Armenia in the 21st century, but without clean air, water, land, and healthy forests, all other matters will eventually diminish in importance. Thank you for sharing this vision and for your support of our work.

By the end of June, we plan to train over 200 additional public school teachers in how to use our “Plant an Idea, Plant a Tree” environmental education manual in their classrooms. Our Building Bridges program, which is being met with great enthusiasm both in Armenia and in diasporan schools, is already bringing youth together to study and discuss environmental issues.

Several schools in the US will be bringing students to visit Karin nursery this spring to engage in environmental lessons with their counterparts in Yerevan. Strengthening such connections between youth will help ensure that a new generation of environmental stewards will come of age to protect and restore Armenia’s precious natural resources.

With your support, we will be able to provide immediate income and jobs for those most in need, while building a better future for generations of Armenians to come.

Jeff Masarjian
Executive Director
Armenia Tree Project